Who doesn’t love a biscuit?

Nashville Urban Gardens brought peach cathead biscuits with blackberry lavender jam, smoked ham and chives topped with a little bit of peach syrup. I thought it also was the prettiest biscuit.

I had not planned to write a blog post about the biscuits offered on Biscuit Boulevard this past Saturday during the third annual International Biscuit Festival. I figured there would be plenty of other “real” media and other bloggers covering the event and I would just stroll around and not worry about it. But, once I saw those biscuits. . . well, I just had to share, as well.

Biscuit Boulevard, you see, is really Market Street the rest of the year — and the view out our condo window is straight up that road. Last year, you may recall, officials had to shut down Biscuit Boulevard because of the crush of people — and because many of the participants ran out of biscuits. Even though Biscuit officials say more than 20,000 people attended this year, a record number, the event was much more orderly and I think the 20 participating restaurants knew better what to expect. They seemed to bring more biscuits — and what creative biscuits they were!

For just $5, guests could purchase a coupon that allowed them to taste up to five different biscuits. Then, they were supposed to vote on the best biscuit on Biscuit Boulevard. The winner of that contest was Cafe 4, for the second year in a row, this year for their cinnamon toast crunch biscuits. Second place went to Tupelo Honey Cafe, an Asheville-based restaurant which is opening a location on Market Square in September. Third place went to Nashville’s Capitol Grille. Click here for the list of other winners of various Biscuit Fest events.

Now, let’s stroll down Biscuit Boulevard, shall we?

This is the view that greeted Alan and me when we threw open our living room window Saturday morning. Sweet!

I hurried down for a closer view of the action.

Downtown developer David Dewhirst had set up his cool old flatbed truck at the corner of Market Street and Church Avenue and bands used it as a stage throughout the day. This band is named If Birds Could Fly. They are from Wise, Virginia. (Thanks to my friend Chyna Brackeen for providing that info.)

If Birds Could Fly

OK, time to take a gander at those biscuits.

The folks from The Plaid Apron in Sequoyah Hills brought buttermilk biscuits with smoked chocolate and whipped sorghum.

A sweet take on the product from The Plaid Apron

Chef Brian Sonoskus sprinkles a little something-something on his biscuits for Tupelo Honey Cafe.

Tupelo Honey's prize-winning biscuit: pimento cheese and country ham

The folks at Latitude 35 brought Buffalo chicken biscuits.

Nothing like Buffalo sauce in the morning to get you going!

The chefs of Ruby Tuesday brought their famous garlic cheddar biscuits.

Ruby Tuesday executive chef, Peter Glander

Those fabulous garlic cheese biscuits

The folks from Oodles Uncorked had this cute little cork cabin at their booth.

The Oodles Uncorked biscuit was a chocolate buttermilk biscuit topped with balsamic strawberries and fresh Chantilly cream. Oh, wow.

From Oodles

The Capitol Grille from Nashville brought mustard seed biscuits with "sock" sausage, named for the way it historically was encased.

Eric New of Dazzo's tries to keep up with demand.

Dazzo's served buttermilk asiago and rosemary biscuits with garlic butter.

The good folks at Soccer Taco brought four kinds of biscuits. We’ll show you two.

Soccer Taco's cheddar jalapeno biscuits

And their bean biscuits!

Sapphire‘s made-from-scratch biscuits featured Benton’s bacon and blue cheese. They were basted with cajun butter.

Unusual biscuit tastes from Sapphire

The ladies from Bella Luna were dishing up chocolate espresso zeppoli with orange mascarpone glaze.

Zeppoli are Italian donuts made with biscuit dough, we were told.

After the tour of Biscuit Boulevard, we made it to Clinch Avenue where still more vendors were set up. Our friend Mary Constantine, food writer for the News Sentinel, was selling the cookbook she wrote with her friend Jennifer Alexander of B97.5.

Mary took a break from selling her Sisters of the Skillet cookbook to give someone directions.

Murray’s Cheese had a nice display and they gave away samples.

Murray cheese display

Interesting cheese samples

The Loveless Cafe folks from Nashville had a fun booth and were selling their country ham biscuits.

I guess you can see why I had to post something! Just a fun, fun Saturday in downtown Knoxville.

Want to read and watch more about the biscuits? Click here for the News Sentinel’s story. Click here for blogger Rusha Sams’ post about it. Click here for a report from the blog of Alexis Zotos of WATE. Click here for WATE’s story. Click here for WBIR’s report. Click here to go to Knoxviews’ take on it — and great photos. Click here for a report from one of my favorite blogs, Stuck Inside of Knoxville with the Urban Blues Again.

Disclosure: Moxley Carmichael is representing Tupelo Honey Cafe as they plan for their grand opening in Knoxville; we also have done work for Ruby Tuesday.